Samsung, Qualcomm start up Alliance for Wireless Power to take on Qi

Wireless power has until now been closely associated with the Wireless Power Consortium’s Qi standard. There’s now a second proposed common ground in the Alliance for Wireless Power, or A4WP. Samsung and Qualcomm, along with some help from Powermat, SK Telecom, Ever Win Industries, Gill Industries and Peiker Acustic, are making an alternative that allows for “spatial freedom” between your gadget and the charging source, although whether or not that’s better than the 1.6-inch distance of the updated Qi spec is left to the imagination. The strategy doesn’t just let your device avoid French kissing the charger: it lets you power up through a material besides a metal plate, and it reduces the cost by eliminating repeaters. A4WP should power everything from low-power headsets through to smartphones and tablets, although with partnership talk just getting started at CTIA Wireless 2012, we wouldn’t hold off on buying wired-power gadgets in the near future.